Hot Town, Summer in the City, Still Looking for a Shadow; Still No Public Toilets

Published: July 23, 1994

To the Editor:

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, as part of his attack on quality-of-life crimes in New York, has said he wants to crack down on public urination. Does the Mayor believe people urinate in the streets by choice?

The city does not have a coordinated system of public toilets, and businesses restrict the use of their facilities to customers. Automated public toilets received rave reviews when they were tested two years ago, but are nowhere in sight.

With no bathrooms to use, truck and taxi drivers, pushcart vendors, tourists, outdoor laborers, children, diabetics, homeless people, the elderly, commuters, pregnant women and all others caught with no place to go face emergencies that entail extreme discomfort and the risk of infection and illness. DAVID SIFF New York, July 13, 1994 The writer, a Dartmouth College student, is a summer intern at the Legal Action Center for the Homeless.